If you want to unlock all the characters in Slay the Spire 2 then there are currently five you can get. Doing that basically means playing each character in turn to unlock the next in line. Importantly, you don’t even have to defeat the final Act 3 boss, as failed runs still count towards unlocking characters. That means if you want to get every character as fast as possible you can just start a run, forfeit in the first battle and repeat with every character until everyone’s unlocked in this order:
- How To Unlock the Ironclad - He’s the starter character!
- How To Unlock The Silent - Play a run as The Ironclad
- How To Unlock The Regent - Play a run as The Silent
- How To Unlock The Necrobinder - Play a run as The Regent
- How To Unlock The Defect - Play a run as The Necrobinder
Such a basic unlock system means you'll have the best Slay the Spire 2 characters in your roster no time. Just as long as you don't mind some bad stats on your record. So lets take a look at each character in turn to see who you'll be getting and what that means.
The Ironclad is your starter and bread-and-butter Slay The Spire 2 character. They'll give you a feel for the core mechanics with cards that inflict straightforward damage and essential debuffs like Vulnerability and Weak. Additionally, The Ironclad can recover 6 HP after every battle thanks to his starting relic, making it especially forgiving for new players. Expert players can leverage this healing to use cards that give The Ironclad extra Energy and Defense at the cost of HP.
Next is The Silent, who is essentially a ninja class. She can stack multiple low-cost cards to attack several times per turn, or focus on inflicting deadly poison stacks on enemies to chip away at HP passively. She’s overall the easiest character for beginners to wrap their heads around after The Ironclad. That said, new to The Silent are Sly cards. These are usually weaker, but if you discarded they’ll play for free. This is its own powerful playstyle, as The Silent can choose to utilize cards with effects like “Draw 2 Cards, then Discard 2 Cards” to theoretically play moves worth several Energy for a fraction of the price.
The Regent is a newcomer to Slay The Spire 2 and introduces a new mechanic: Stars. Stars are like a secondary type of Energy, and many of the cards you’ll find as The Regent will list a Star cost on top of Energy. However, while Energy will reset to your max Energy pool every turn (before card effects and relics are applied), your Star pool will remain the same regardless of your turn. This means you’ll have to work harder to accrue Stars in battle, but you can also stockpile Stars to inflict astronomical burst damage. The Regent can also power up a Sword using cards that grant Forge, and spawn non-class-specific Colorless cards into his hand or transform cards outright.
The Necrobinder is another newcomer and brings her own transformative mechanics - every turn she’ll summon her minion Osty, who acts as a wall that absorbs any damage you take after your Block is broken. If Osty is already on the field, any effects that “summon” will increase Osty’s Max HP instead. Additionally, several of Necrobinder’s cards can also add Soul cards to her deck, which allow her to draw additional cards without using any energy (these cards are removed from the deck after use). Necrobinder can also stack Doom on foes, which is kind of like a variation of The Silent’s poison - if you stack enough Doom on an enemy that it exceeds their current HP, they’ll instantly die after they take their turn.
Last is our final returning character, the Defect who channels elemental orbs that trigger passive effects at the end of its turn. By default it can channel three orbs at a time, and any orbs gained after that will “evoke” the orb at the front of the line, dealing strong damage or granting a powerful shield. The Defect has access to five different orb types, each of which synergize with different cards from its pool. On top of this orb system, the Defect can also deliberately bloat its deck with negative status cards to trigger card-specific effects. It also has access to a multitude of 0 Energy cards, which rewards players who can build decks that draw multiple cards per turn.
If you’re wondering what how Slay The Spire 2 multiplayer works with friends, then take a look at our complete guide here to see what you should expect and how that affects how you use what you've unlocked.
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